This old departamento

Living in a quirky old place with no monthly expenses, we basically have to be our own encargados (building superintendents). What does that entail? Well, I'm still learning, but here's a little wisdom gleaned from our first 8 months:

- When we smelled gas in the galeria, Ian called a local gasista, who tore up some old tiles to reveal a rusty, leaky gas pipe. It was replaced & the galeria tiles were patched back up for $300 (Arg. pesos). Not too traumatic.

- A neighbor who lives in an old building that abuts our old building called us about the presence of humidity in our joined walls. We gamely arranged a visit (but I was bracing myself for the worst). The neighbor brought her building's administrator (why not encargado? no sé.) and an overseer from the hotel construction project on another side of our building. We were surrounded.... After inspecting our home inside and out, the crew declared the leaky faucet on our terraza as suspect #1.

- Ian called back the local gasista, who also happens to be a plomero. We asked him to see if he thought the rooftop leaky faucet could be damaging the joined walls and estimate how much it would cost to fix it. He dug up some terraza tiles to reveal that, no, the pipe itself was not leaking, just the old fixture (which I want to replace with an outdoor shower anyway), nor did any water reach the troubled area. Total cost: $0.

- But on his way up to our roof, the local gasista/plumber, who also happens to be a welder, stepped on our circular staircase in such a way that one of the welded corners came apart. So we've asked him to come back to weld the metal staircase in a few places, adding some child-proofing bars while he's at it. I guess he's almost becoming our outsourced encargado -- without much financial gain from us.

(Photo credit: CTPyle of fromacafe fame. I can't believe that was just 5 months ago -- before my belly took on its current epic proportions.)